Otherwise Maladroit

18 March 2000 Reaction Paper: Towards A Marxist-Leninist Analysis Of The 1896 Revolution

18 March 2000

Reaction Paper: Towards A Marxist-Leninist Analysis Of The 1896 Revolution

I don't know much about Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, or Mao; not even our very own Jose Maria Sison. Given that I am to blame for the lack of effort, the internalization of Communism is as alien to me as say, spike heels and a thong bikini. The idea of living in a commune is too utopian, too ideal for imperfect people like me. But if I think about it I don't feel like a Liberal, much less a Conservative. Although it is said that Liberals are actually Conservatives who haven't been mugged yet. (I got this piece of wisdom from an MTV cartoon. The same one who shows "Beavis and Butthead". Que horror!) People tend to pigeonhole people in just these three categories, and everyone else who cannot decide is dismissed as politically immature, or an unconscious Liberal.

I wonder how I can feel for Socialism, that everyone is accountable to everyone else, but believe in individualism, which goes too well with Capitalism and enshrined in Objectivism. All these "-isms" make my head ache and in the ensuing rabble between little Karl Marxes and Adam Smiths clubbing each other in my throbbing little brain I decide that there should be an end to all restrictive forms of authority. Thus was borne my interest in Libertarian Socialism, or Anarchy.

But don't hold your breath, I haven't settled yet.

I think, reality is relative. There is no true reality. The only way that one person could actually say, with truthfulness, that he knows what is reality, is if he had lived everyone's lives, in every period, in every class, and in all possible aspects. Even if reincarnation is true (sorry po sir!), the existence of the Universe is not yet through, and therefore I think reality has not been established yet. Still we haven't taken into account, the lives of animals who in their own way has their own reality. And if a Green (they are now a political entity) will read this, he may be compelled to add the lives of trees, vegetables, and if he was truly a fanatic, the lives of micro-organisms. I think reality is parallel to existence, for who or what shall experience it, or try to define it. In this sense, anyone who is alive, most especially those that are aware of their being alive, is accountable for every other life. But enough about that, now little gouramis are making war to a patola, in my already cluttered brain.

But why the preoccupation with reality? Well, other than it's a cute intro, it has something to do with class. No no, not the one with blackboards, or that virtue that is espoused in the higher echelons of society.

The reality of each class (e.g. proletariat and bourgeois) is what their material existence defines it. If you've eaten steak all your life you can prefer it over tinola (again, this is relative). If you've had nothing better than tuyo, or even just rice and salt, you can say that it is better than going with nothing at all.

This goes much in the same way as with the valuation of one's work. A farmer, or laborer who sees the concrete results of his hands' work, is WORK to him. But in a different material reality, as in the bourgeois, who prefer more high-salary work that requires more conceptualization than brawn, is still doing work. Albeit it does not seem to be concrete, its utility is felt.

That is why the idea of the supremacy of the proletariat seems ridiculous to me. If indeed Communism is Socialist, why does it endorse the supremacy of one kind of class over the other? What it has simply done is to turn the tables of authority. Of course this authority may be better than the previous fascist and capitalist authority, still it is the domination of one kind of reality over another. It is still one class of people dominating another class.

However, it is claimed that after the imposition of the proletarian leadership and the success of the Socialist Revolution, the State as we know will wither away. I have misgivings to taking this road going to Utopia when it entails the forcible conversion of one mind to another. If as I say it reality is relative, then no mind should have dominance to any other.

The Aguinaldos in this world are wrong. They are insensitive to any other interest, other than their own. Yet the Rizals of this world are not also completely right, because their idea of intellectual brotherhood is too ignorant of material reality. What we could only hope is that there would be more Bonifacios in this world (I'm prejudiced). People who only see the black and white of society. Who say wrong is wrong, and right is right without "ifs" or "buts". I only wish that if another Bonifacio is made, that he be more wily like Aguinaldo or charismatic like Rizal, without losing any of his virtue.

posted by Otherwise Maladroit @ 5:19 PM